Latest ETC Reports (included in homepage)

This report evaluates the environmental burden of disease (EBD) linked to long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) across 41 European countries in 2023. Using the key health indicators—attributable deaths, years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life years—the analysis quantifies the health impacts of air pollution above concentrations defined as the World Health Organisation’s air quality guideline levels. Approximately 206,000 deaths are attributable to PM2.5, while about 56,000 and 71,000 deaths area attributable to NO2 and O3, respectively. The disease burden from PM2.5 was highest due to its association with multiple health outcomes, with high baseline prevalence and mortality. Results highlight strong regional disparities, with South-Eastern Europe most affected by health effects from PM2.5 and NO2, and Southern Europe by those from O3. Findings underscore the need for targeted policies to reduce pollutant-specific health impacts in Europe.

Monitoring air quality around airports and nearby cities is crucial to understanding the role of emissions from air traffic and other airport activities. This report analyses air quality in 23 European airports, revealing limited observations in and around airport areas. Only three of the 23 airports had at least one air quality sampling point for NO2, PM2.5 and O3 inside the airport area. Concentrations in nearby cities can be up to double (NO2), 57% higher (PM2.5) and 85% higher (O3) when the wind comes from the airport. EEA air quality maps showed higher annual mean NO2 concentrations in airport areas compared to surrounding regions, with one airport above the 2030 limit value of 20 µg/m³. Annual mean PM2.5 concentrations were also higher in airport areas, with six airports exceeding the revised limit value. The limited number of sampling points makes it challenging to assess trends in NO2, PM2.5 and O3 concentrations. A final chapter of the report presents an overview of available measurements and studies of ultra fine particles (UFP) in the vicinity of airports.

The report provides the annual update of the European air quality concentration maps and population and vegetation exposure estimates for human health related indicators of pollutants PM10 (annual average, 90.4 percentile of daily means), PM2.5 (annual average), ozone (93.2 percentile of maximum daily 8-hour means, peak season average of maximum daily 8-hour means, SOMO35, SOMO10), NO2 (annual average) and benzo(a)pyrene (annual average), and vegetation related ozone indicators (AOT40 for vegetation and for forests) for the year 2023. The report contains also maps of Phytotoxic ozone dose (PODY) for selected crops (wheat, potato and tomato) and trees (spruce and beech) and NOx annual average map for the same year 2023. The trends in exposure estimates in the period 2005-2023 are summarized. The analysis for 2023 is based on the interpolation of the annual statistics of the 2023 observational data reported by the EEA member and cooperating countries and other voluntary reporting countries and stored in the Air Quality e-reporting database, complemented, when needed, with measurements from additional sources. The mapping method is the Regression – Interpolation – Merging Mapping (RIMM). It combines monitoring data, chemical transport model results and other supplementary data using linear regression model followed by kriging of its residuals (residual kriging). The report presents the mapping results and gives an uncertainty analysis of the interpolated maps. It also presents concentration change in 2023 in comparison to the 5-year average 2018-2022 using the difference maps and exposure estimates.

The report presents interim 2024 maps for PM10 annual average, PM2.5 annual average, O3 indicator peak season average of maximum daily 8-hour means, and NO2 annual average. The maps have been produced based on the 2024 non-validated E2a (UTD) data of the AQ e-reporting database, the CAMS Ensemble Forecast modelling data and other supplementary data. Together with the concentration maps, the inter-annual differences between 5-year average 2019-2023 and 2024 are presented (using the 2019-2023 regular and the 2024 interim maps), as well as basic exposure estimates based on the interim maps.